Price Tapes is a cassette label from Providence, Rhode Island, releasing some of the best local and not-so-local contemporary experimental music. The tapes have been preserved as free downloads at the Price Tapes Tumblr, and we're pleased to host them at the FMA. Price Tapes tends toward sonic adventures by solo artists who gravitate towards Providence's thriving artist community. When they joined the FMA, Price Tapes requested we add a few new genres to our genre tree like darkwave and fake techno. What is fake techno? Let's unpack the tapes and listen:

Christopher Forgues used to make music as Kites, releasing fantastic albums like Peace Trials for Providence's Load Records, that were often classified as 'noise' or 'folk'. Lately, under the name Mark Lord, he's applying that same creative force to music that usually gets classified as techno. But it's not really that simple. Hence, 'fake techno.'

Coppertone is the darkwave project of Sasha Wiseman. Darkwave is dark ethereal synth pop with grit, and we really should add it to our genre tree since we already host music by similar-sounding artists like Zola Jesus and Stacian.

As Pak, South Carolina's Lauren Pakradooni makes recordings out of her own handmade loop tapes, run through effects with layers of warped vocals.